There’s a new type of Russian arm at IBC this year, the TYR Take-Away Russian Arm. It is a compact and easy-to-setup car jib system that can be used on various cars.
For those that don’t know what a Russian arm is, please have a look at the video above. It is a car-mounted camera crane that is operated from within the vehicle for high-speed car chase sequences and most commonly used on car commercials, and can carry any kind of gimbal head from Scorpio to Oculus. Besides the enormous costs of the system (the crane alone is in the six digit line, which makes it a rental item, usually including the car), you will need to have a pimped-up car to handle the weight and drag of the system. It is not a simple take-it-off and put it in the garage kind of setup. These cars can basically be thrown out once they have racked-up enough miles.
The German company Allgolden UG has taken it on themselves to radically change this. As its name states, with the Take-Away Russian Arm a crane can be placed on top of the vehicle in a variety of positions, depending on the requirements of the shot. At roughly €110,000 purchase price, it is still not going to be cheap (see our IBC video for details), but it will be possible to put it on top of any normal passenger car that you rent on location. Their plan is also to (depending on the rental houses of course) to rent the system out without special operators, which is usually the requirement for other systems.
Russian Arm Modes
The Take-Away Russian Arm has different modes to select from.
Extended mode opens up the 3-Axis possibilities to move around freely in 3D-space. You can move in/out and up/down, while going 360° around the car.
Compact Mode lets you do whatever you want, even if you have less experience. It makes sure that you always stay in safe boundaries by limit your overhead movement to less than 90 cm / 3 ft from the car – which drastically minimizes the risk of collision – while still letting you move up/down and 360° around the car.
Garage Mode is an integrated special mode dedicated to confined spaces. It allows you to create unseen tracking shots in car parks or narrow passages when mounted at the back.
Supported Cars and Gimbals
The TYR system consists of industrial-grade electronics in an anodized body, which confirms that it is very weather proof. The system itself supports over 200 different cars, and if you have a car that is not on the list you can customize the rig to suit your needs. The rig can support a payload of 20KG. For now, the following cameras and gimbals are supported based on their weight.
The TYR app for the Take-Away Russian Arm seems very advanced already.
Compatible cameras:
Arri Alexa Mini, Red Weapon, Canon C500, Canon 5D, Sony Alpha 7, Sony FS7, Sony F55, Blackmagic URSA
Compatible gimbals:
Shotover G1, Movi XL, Movi Pro, Movi M15, DJI Ronin 2, DJI Ronin MX
Russian Arm Controls and App
When you buy the TYR system, you will receive a touch-screen tablet with the pre-installed app. This app is loaded with features for crew safety, which include visual crane position feedback, user limits, emergency stop buttons and safety margins just to name a few. There are two assistant switches included which block all motion during gate check, lens change, card swap or your lunch break.
Price and Availability
The guys behind the TYR are still working out bugs and details of the system and their app, but it will be available in a couple of months for €110,000, which of course will make it a typical rental item.
What do you think of the take-away Russian Arm? Would you convert your car to have this rig on your roof? Please let us know in the comments below!

A couple of days ago I tried to figure out the inner workings of the newly announced Edelkrone Jib Plus. Now, at NAB 2016, Seb met with Edelkrone’s CEO Kadir Köymen to find out how (and if) it actually works – and it does indeed!
How the Edelkrone Jib Plus works
As Kadir walks us through the inner workings of the different modules of the Jib Plus, it becomes very clear that first and foremost a lot of programming went into this device. The real magic happens inside the sensor module with sits between the tripod and your jib arm of choice. The module senses the movement of your given jib whether it is panning or tilting (or both, of course) and feeds the computer within to do its calculations.
The system needs to see the target of choice from at least two different perspectives manually, then it triangulates the information and calculates a smooth curve for each and every in-between point in space. Some serious reverse kinematic calculations are going on! With only two points in space, the system will learn to point the camera at the given target no matter where you swing the jib manually.
The best thing is that you can put the system on any jib, it will do all the tracking and focusing for you. You just need to operate the jib as you like and the camera will follow your target and holds it in frame. Focus probably will need more than two points; you teach the system as you go to refocus manually via the controller module. The resulting focus curve is being used for all stored targets shot with that same lens.
So basically, we’re talking about an automatic target tracking system for jibs. According to Kadir, it is long going project—and it is almost finished. Please note, it’s still in a pretty advanced prototype state, but it will be ready in three months from now.
Pricing of the Jib Plus
The pricing has not been decided as of yet, but it definitely won’t be under $1,000 (or $2,000, even) as Kadir only smiles and says “I don’t know.” We have to wait a little longer, I assume.
It’s really nice to see how a company can be so innovative and fresh like Edelkrone. Kadir tells us this is because they think differently:
We don’t concentrate on the products, we just concentrate on the problems.
All-in-all it sounds like a neat approach to come up with fresh and innovative products. Chapeau!
Learn all about the new Jib Plus in our previous article and on the Edelkrone website.

The Benro System Go is a new tripod that can be transformed into a slider and many other setups on the go.
Benro is a manufacturer of photo and video support gear. Their newest product is this hybrid transformer-style photo tripod / slider that can also be converted into several other setups. Some of which seem practical on paper, but rather questionable in real life as promoted in the video below. The part when it becomes a handheld rig is quite enjoyable:
The Benro System Go will be available early next year. There has been no pricing announced yet.

The Pocket Jib Traveler was introduced by Kessler a few months ago – and ever since I saw it at NAB 2013, I couldn’t wait to try it myself.
One big downside of jibs and cranes is their size – they are often bulky and difficult to transport, and the setup usually takes a while. The Pocket Jib Traveler does away with this – it’s the smallest and most portable jib I have ever encountered.
The good stuff: you can put it onto your normal tripod. In my test, I simply used my Sachtler FSB8 (a 75mm bowl head) with the Pocket Jib Traveler, so it wasn’t a heavy duty tripod – and it worked just fine. Also, the jib is extremely easy to set up – as you can see in the review video, it’s very simple to pull out the joint to twist it into its “jib state”.

Tomorrow at 1pm ET, Kessler release their next batch of CineDrive systems.
CineDrive is Kessler’s latest line in motor controlled motion camera systems. It’s a digitally driven system, enabling integration between computers and smart devices (via a dedicated app).
Kessler’s previous flagship line was the Oracle, an analogue based system. The CineDrive system offers a much more user-friendly digital interface. It uses keyframes and bezier curves to depict programmed camera moves, which pose familiarities with post effects programs and non-linear editing platforms.

cinema5D member TimFok has recently created this very nice review of the DSLR Device Jib. A small, lightweight and affordable jib by a company based in Great Britain.
From TimFok’s blog:
One addition I’d like to add that I didn’t include in the video, is a comment on the brake unit. This is connected using the two supplied bolts and wing nuts. When tightened up it does it great job, holds the full weight of my 5D, lens and 701 effortlessly. What I wasn’t such a fan of was when it was not in use.
Due to the length of the bolts, it was difficult to find a position where the brake wasn’t retaining any tension, but wasn’t so lose that it was in danger of falling off completely. A simple solution would be to have slightly longer bolts, meaning you could put the brake in a safe ‘off’ position without risking the nuts falling off.
The DSLR Devices Jib is £235 ($369) and can be ordered here: LINK

Jibs are your friend if you’re a one man show kind of production but still want pro looking camera movement. Lucky you: The HDSLR revolution brought tons of new gear into the market. While I must admit a lot of the gear we see is trash there are also very nice and cool things out there now. Like ultra affordable, lightweight and foldable Jib’s. Here are three units I found nice: